The Cultural Cognition Project is a group of scholars interested in studying how cultural values shape public risk perceptions and related policy beliefs. Cultural cognition refers to the tendency of individuals to conform their beliefs about disputed matters of fact (e.g., whether humans are causing global warming; whether the death penalty deters murder; whether gun control makes society more safe or less) to values that define their cultural identities.Project members are using the methods of various disciplines -- including social psychology, anthropology, communications, and political science -- to chart the impact of this phenomenon and to identify the mechanisms through which it operates. The Project also has an explicit normative objective: to identify processes of democratic decisionmaking by which society can resolve culturally grounded differences in belief in a manner that is both congenial to persons of diverse cultural outlooks and consistent with sound public policymaking.

Why as science furnishes more and more knowledge essential to their well-being do members of culturally diverse groups agree less and less about the risks they confront and the policies best suited for abating them? This project seeks to use science's own signature methods of disciplined observation and inference to identify and solve the "science communication problem" distinctive of contemporary pluralistic democracies.

The same methods used in the lab must also be employed in the field if the insigh of the "science of science communication" are to have a real world impact. This project features collaborations by empirical researchers and local-government decisionmakers aimed at identifying and empirically testing strategies for promoting constructive public engagement with decision-relevant science.

How can science filmmakers satisfy the appetite that culturally diverse citizens share in experiencing wonder and awe in scientific discovery? How in particular can they make it possible for curious individuals to avoid having to choose between enjoying that experience and enjoying the sense of community they derive from their membership in groups tragically entangled in recriminatory controversies over issues like evolution and climate change? The animating hypothesis of this project is that science filmmakers can use science to help them answer these very questions.

In a liberal society, the state is forbidden to “pick sides” between citizens who subscribe to different visions of the best way of life and must confine legal obligations to ones consistent with interests shared by all citizens. But is this basic constitutional principle psychologically realistic? This project investigates how cultural cognition influences jurors’ determination of facts, judges’ interpretations of law, and citizens’ perceptions of the neutrality of the outcomes in cases suffused with cultural conflict.

This project has two goals: first, to enlarge societal understanding of how to promote informed public engagement with valid empirical evidence on the efficacy and safety of vaccines; and second, to advance societal recognition of the need to use valid empirical evidence to guide communication on vaccines and other applications of science essential to societal well-being.

Research of the Cultural Cognition Project is or has been supported by the National Science Foundation; by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania; by the Skoll Global Threats Fund; by the Putnam Foundation; by the Woodrow Wilson International Center of Scholars; by the Arcus Foundation; by the Ruebhausen Fund at Yale Law School; by the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University; and by GWU, Temple, and NYU Law Schools. You can contact us here.